{"id":24694,"date":"2018-10-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/70-years-of-jaguar-xk120\/"},"modified":"2020-10-05T06:38:37","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T06:38:37","slug":"70-years-of-jaguar-xk120","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/en\/70-years-of-jaguar-xk120\/","title":{"rendered":"70 Years of Jaguar XK120"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anyone who thinks of Jaguar as a car brand today, has either a luxury sedan or a racy sports car like the E-Type in mind. However, only very few readers might know that the history of sporty models at Jaguar began exactly 70 years ago. Before World War 2, the brand was known as ‘Swallow Sidecars Company’ and often shortened to S.S. on the vehicles. Due to the use of this abbreviation by the Nazis, the UK-based car manufacturer decided for a renaming and used a former name of a pre-war model as its new brand name: Jaguar. In 1948 finally the new XK120 appeared as a worthy successor to the S.S. 100 of the pre-war era.

Jaguar chose the domestic London Motor Show 1948 for the debut of their new sports car and naturally experienced high public interest. This increased even further when they announced that the numbering 120 stood for the expected maximum speed in miles per hour. For this purpose, a new inline six-cylinder engine with 3.4 liters displacement and dual overhead-cam was developed, which provided 119 kW\/160 bhp. This force reaches the rear-axle via a four-speed manual transmission. This engine performed in refined form with 3.8 and 4.2 liters of displacement in different other Jaguar models until 1992. To prove its performance, Jaguar went to Belgium and, together with local police, blocked the motorway between Ostend and Jabbeke on 30 May 1949 for some record attempts in both driving directions. Timekeeping was done by Belgian Royal Automobile Club. They determined an average speed of 132.6 mph over both runs. With a tonneau cover over the unused co-driver-seat, the average climbed to 135 mph. For a long time the XK120 was the fastest sports car in the world. Compared to production vehicles, the prototype used for the record attempt had small aero discs instead of a windscreen and a long ratio rear-axle, but both of which were optionally available to customers ex works. In later production years more records and even wins in rallying and racing followed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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